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Mayor to be probed over fairground death

The mayor of Argyroupoli-Elliniko, where a 13-year-old boy lost his life at a fairground, has been asked to explain the municipality’s actions as part of an administrative investigation into the incident that is separate from the judicial probe that has led to four people being charged with felonies.

Mayor Christos Kortzidis has been given 10 days to give a written explanation of the municipality’s dealings with the company that rented the area where the fairground was located. Kortzidis insists that although the firm paid to rent the space, it never applied for a permit to operate a fairground there. It is not clear how municipal officials failed to spot that rides had been illegally set up at the site, which is next to a busy road.

The boy was killed when a strong gust of wind blew away a helium-filled water roller he was in.

The government’s general secretary for decentralized administration, Manolis Angelakas, has asked Kortzidis to explain why the municipality agreed to rent the space without asking the company to explain what it was going to use it for, why the fairground was allowed to operate without a license and why the company was allowed to continue using the site even though its rental agreement expired in February.

The four people charged so far in connection to the boy’s death, the owner of the company, the man who rented the equipment and two employees, were granted conditional release on Friday.